Creative musings in bright colors

Posts tagged ‘metallic’

Another pink over teal mani! But this one is ALL SHINY. I kinda wish I had used a creme base honestly, but somehow the silver is metallic, the pink is metallic, and the teal has pink metallic shimmer. This was really quite shiny!

I’m pretty sure this is double stamped with the same gradient, which is why some of the lines aren’t exactly these same thickness? Or maybe the stamp just looks like that. I am far too lazy to check!

So, being honest, I don’t love this mani. I was a little pressed for time and wanted to both stamp something cool, and use the colors that the nail polish base was designed after. Since the polish is called You Look Like Seafood in honor of Tamatoa from Moana, that meant fuchsia and gold. And unfortunately, this is where I ended up!

This is three thin coats of You Look Like Seafood! by Dreamland polish. I love love LOVE this nail polish…the blue base, the pink shimmer, the flakies, the whole thing is stunning. I also really only needed two coats, I added the third just for a bit more depth. That said, I hate the brush on the polish! There was no way NOT to flood my pinky as the brush was both wide and not curved. 😦

This was also the first time I played with the Moyra Cuts plate, I have used it many times since but I was still working with how to stamp large swatches here! Luckily my polishes were quite opaque :-p. Hope you enjoyed this more than I did!

I really have been on a purple kick! This seems to be a theme. I like purple, what can I say!

At least for this mani I have an excuse: I used my swatch nails from the Purple Metallics to create these! I just added two stripes of a different color to each nail, creating a very crude gradient of random purple metallic. I then stamped with some twirls, and voila! Not half bad honestly.

This is also my last post with four photos rather than three for a while…it takes me around 30 minutes to edit each photo to my satisfaction and I haven’t had time for two hours per post! So three photos it is. This one has four though because I edited in stages and, as previously stated, I like purple :-p. I have a hunch my more loved manis are going to get 4 (and the just ok ones will get three).

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Happy Friday! I am quite excited because although I am on call today (this was pre-posted since I am sleeping in the hospital tonight), I only have 3 more ICU call days this block! And I get to go see Jersey Boys tomorrow! For FREE! 😀

You guys, I just had a DAY (but Eva, it’s only 3pm! Yes but I woke up at 5:30, so it’s been a whole day and I am over it). Which means that today’s post will be short and sweet because I mostly want to bang my head into a wall. Repeatedly. And this mani? Not helping.

The base here is three coats of Delaney by Zoya. In the bottle this has a bit of a duochrome/multichrome finish, but that did not translate to the nail (which was pretty much as expected). This is, I think, the last of my haul from winning the Nail Art Canada holiday challenge…and of all the Zoya polishes I received, this is the one I was least excited about. So it went lest. This polish is basically a muted dull metallic purple, and I already have Zoya Gadia, which is amazing. So yah, this is three thin coats, and it looks fine but I have prettier version of this in my stash already.

For the design, I ended up doing a purple-to-white lace stamping gradient, getting bored, and adding a metric ton of dots! I think I went overboard I really need to stop trying to do lace gradients over purple, this is probably the third time I have tried something like this, and to date I have liked none of them!

And that’s all for today! I know it isn’t great, but I’m working off my backlog. This one and the next post are just not my favorites, but then it should get good again (I tend to edit the photos in waves of things-I-love and things-I-dislike, and we are in a dislike wave, Monday’s post was the end of a love wave). Ok. Too much train of thought. Enjoy!

This was a fun mani to put together! I always love combining multichromes an seeing what comes out of them. This was especially rewarding because I had never come up with an idea on how to use these stamps before and I love how it came out!

So, between a multichrome gradient and two different colored stamps, I ended up with a big of a complicated mani. I don’t care. For once, complicated works!

Also, this mani is a bit of a temporal milestone: I officially start residency tomorrow (in the cardiac intensive care unit) AND it’s my 30th birthday tomorrow. So, I am leaving behind my 20’s, and starting to care for really sick patients in one go. This also means that, while I will try, my posting schedule is likely to get a bit wonky while I am staffing the CCU!

I only used two multichromes in the gradient on these nails, so while the other colors do shine through, the primary purple is Undenied, and the primary gold is Greatness. Hope you enjoyed, and happy early birthday to me!

Sorry you guys! My posting schedule remains wonky…just because I haven’t edited any photos yet! I’ll try to get back on track. In the meanwhile, enjoy this really weird kinda floral mani with a really pretty base!

I don’t really know what I was thinking with this design. The polish I used as a base is super pretty but very busy, so I decided to throw three metallics on top of it? Not one of my best ideas.

Anyway, the base here is three thin coats of From the Land of Oz by Polished for Days. Unfortunately, my camera is not capturing the lavender-purple base of this polish, the camera likes to think it is more blue. I only used three coats for more glitter depth, it was full coverage in two. This polish is from Polish Pickup, so isn’t available anymore…but if you aren’t yet you should all go join PPU! This coming month is a revival of past favorites and a LOT of my very favorites are coming back, so if you missed something this would be a great time to pick it up!

Dark Purple: What makes a dark purple rather than a purple? I don’t know. These just seemed darker. Except one (which is obvious) and I couldn’t fit anywhere. All of these polishes have problems of their own however!

So. Delaney took three coats while the rest took two, and obviously does not fit. I don’t like this polish even thought I don’t own any dupes, so it is a goner! For the other three, it is a bit more difficult. I love the color of Talk, but the purple is sooo vibrant that any time I try to do nail art over it, the purple bleeds through (I know it looks blue here, I swear it is a purple). I can put down two coats of top coat and use a metallic silver and the silver will still turn purple! Violets is a very pretty polish which I would love to use more (just look at that hidden shimmer) but it SMELLS. I don’t know why anyone puts scents in their polish, if I wanted to wear perfume I would! Ugh. So awesome color but it smells like terrible fake flowers. Ink I really like, I am just sad that the pink-purple shimmer that is so evident in the bottle is not as clear on the nails. Either way, I am ditching Delaney and keeping the rest, although I want to replace Violets with a similar color that doesn’t have a smell! Pooh to you, Revlon.

————————————————————

Purple Metallics: I love metallics, and in case the number of polishes shown today didn’t make it clear, I love purple metallics. There is just something about the shimmer in purple (be it red or blue leaning) that is so darn pretty! That said, I know one I am parting with!

One of these things is not like the others…and it’s the OPI. There just isn’t as much depth to Chemis-tree as there is to the Zoyas! And wow are all the Zoyas beautiful. I had thought that Iris would be a dupe for Isadora, but even with top coat (Iris is a matte), it is much lighter. Giada and Valerie are still my favorites, but I love them all! All 5 polishes covered easily in 2 thin coats, and this is obviously shown with top coat since Iris is shiny. I think I am going to get rid of Chemis-tree, it is the same shade as Valerie with the same shimmer…but I love the coarser glitter in Valerie while Chemis-tree just looks grey and muted with the fine glitter. Voila!

Sorry about the one-photo-per-swatch today, I ran out of time and honestly the photos in my lightbox didn’t look great for these! I need better lights. Also, I have begun packing to move to St Louis, so if I stop posing regularly it’s because moving has taken over my life! Also…this is my final swatch test post! It is back to nail art on Monday 🙂

Another day for nail art! Kinda. This is another one that I want to repeat over just one color, likely a dark color. In terms of the polishes I chose to swatch, all but my pinky look really darn close in the bottle! That said, in the bottle, the shimmer in this polish is very strong and I always forget that doesn’t translate onto the nail! It looks like it COULD be a medium blue :-p

All polishes took three coats to be opaque, other than Yoga which only took two. When swatching these, I found a new favorite! I had forgotten about the Sally Hansen and it is beautiful! Possibly my favorite even if it is the least metallic. Estelle is the most metallic, but actually ends up looking streaky. I think I’ll stick with Tart, now I just need to decide if I want to get rid of Estelle all together or keep both her and Tart! Decisions, decisions.

All that said, I actually really hate Toga and Lit-Teal just for the names. Puns are cute, but not when you turn them into multi word hyphenated messes! Just for that (and because I seldom wear polishes that are nothing BUT glitter) I am going to part ways with Lit-Teal. I just hate typing it, and I never wear it!

For my design, I just double stamped with the same pattern…which looks amazing over the darker blues and kinda fades away over the lighter ones. I used plate BP – L003 and stamped with Zoya Yummy and then Color Club Over the Moon. Hope you enjoyed!

This mani was done super last minute because I had forgotten that I had an interview the next day (I never forget about flights, but if its only a bus ride away…well, that can be a problem). I mostly wanted something fast!

I don’t know that I love the combo of a frosty shimmer with a metallic polish, I think a creme stamp might have worked better. I do love this stamp though, it is pretty much my go-to when I need something fast, swirly, and pretty!

The colors here are Freshwater Pearl by ULTA for the pink base, and Penny Talk for the rose gold stamp. The stamp itself is from Bundle Monster plate 314.

Of course, there was also no sun while I wore this, so you only get to see indoor lighting, sorry!

I promise that the designs going up next week are a tad more colorful! Happy Friday!

I bought this awesome indigo dress with a lace overlay, so I had to create some matching nails when I wore it to a wedding! I wish I had a photo of the dress ready to go, it was quite pretty 🙂

This is basically just blue and black quasi-lace. I thought lace alone was boring, so I only put that on my accent nails. The other nails got a thick black border and a swirly center. The blue polish I used as a base is one of those semi-metallic polishes that has a lot more depth depending on the angle, so they came out looking cool…but only if you got them in the right light! Otherwise the pattern was almost too subtle.

I had actually forgotten what a pretty color Blue my Mind is…but then I remembered that I hate how wide the Sally Hansen brushes are. Ugh!

This mani was a disaster, but a very colorful one! Ergo, rainbow day in the 31 Day Challenge. To achieve this craziness, I tested two types of polish (metallic vs jelly over silver), three ways of applying the polish (small splotches, big splotches, and stamper squish), and 5 stamps. Hilariously (aka sadly) when I had finally settled on colors, method of application, and stamp…the application didn’t work! It looked awful. So I switched and it took forever to correct the mistake, but the end result was super shimmery and colorful regardless :-p

The design itself was inspired by Fashion Polish, although I don’t own those type of bold jellies nor do I own a stamp even close to what she has! So I improvised. All my stamps didn’t look anything like hers so I gave up and went with a different fun stamp instead.

I liked both the matte and shiny versions of this mani! I matted it at the end cause that is what she had done…but I don’t know how I feel about it vs the shiny! Any votes for either direction?

Day 8’s prompt is ‘metallic’ which is an odd one. I ended up using a metallic flakie/holo polish as the base for this mani, so I’m posting it here!

The actual reason for this mani was the stamps…I’ve been wanting to use the optical illusions from this particular plate for a year (which is how long I’ve owned the plate). I love how it came out! I am also quite glad I did not use a simple white base as I had initially planned. That would have been boring :-p

I don’t have much else to say about them, since they are simply stamps. I do now want to go use all the other fun designs from this plate! I’ve used some of them before, but I actually like how good this looks with just a simple stamp (being me, its usually over a gradient).

Remember how the day before Valentine’s Day I said I had this awesome new nude polish? And then I used that polish as my base for the Valentine’s Dotticure without showing you swatches? Well, here are the swatches!

This is three thin coats of Cherish by Picture Polish. Since I am stuck wearing boring colors in the hospital, I figured it was time to amass a collection of nudes and semi-nudes that are moderately interesting and do not require 23482934 coats to be opaque. This definitely fits the bill!

Cherish is a slightly grey nude with copious holo shards scattered in it. It is quite flattering! The holo certainly catches the light, but it isn’t strong enough to be distracting. It also dried quite nicely 🙂

I stamped over Cherish with Penny Talk by Essie, using a Born Pretty stamping plate. I cannot claim credit for this idea…my sister asked me to use this specific stamp on her nails a while back (hers were blue-on-blue) and I liked how it came out so I decided to use the pattern!

So what do you think, tone-on-tone but still pretty? The best part was that the pattern almost disappeared in indirect lighting, and jumped out in sunlight.

Unfortunately I didn’t even write down what polishes I used when I put this together, I need to start keeping track of which polishes I bring with me on trips! You might be able to tell by the crummy quality of the photos just how much I had to color-correct this mani (my nails were BRIGHT red, darn lighting) so I really can’t pinpoint the polish!

That being said, I’m guessing the light blue is Yummy by Zoya, but that’s all I’ve got! The darker blue is probably Song, just because I feel like I reach for Song before Tart. Some day I will learn!

This also took forever to edit, because as I mentioned I didn’t have my usual nail art photo set-up. The worst part? I actually BROUGHT my lighting rig with me, I just didn’t set it up! *head desk*

Ok, just enjoy the photos. Maybe. I am done explaining the wreck that was putting this together! Hence most of the photos are sunlight photos taken on my iPhone…it was not worth the editing for the others!

The design can be summarized as “Eva has fun with purples and striping tape”. It also totally works for the Day 12 – Stripes prompt! Win-win.

This mani cane about because I found a purple L’oreal polish on sale at Rite Aid, and I spent fully 5 minutes trying to figure out from memory if it would be perfectly between the two purple I currently own. I ended up buying it, and I am really glad I did! That also meant that I needed to use it with a bunch of other purple polishes I own, just to make sure the color fits.

This is Paparazzi Pleaser by L’oreal. The polish is much more jelly-like than creme-like. It took three thin coats, which was fine, but was incredibly sheer on the first coat. I am actually quite happy with that, as I’ve been looking for some jelly polishes to use for lead lighting and I think this one might work! Interestingly, this purple (its a blue-toned purple rather than a pink-toned one) dries a full shade darker than it looks in the bottle. Go figure!

When I got this stamping plate, one of the designs I was most excited to use was the peacock feather. So here we are! And since the stamp is using a metallic polish (you can get more metal-y than gold) I figured it worked ok for the Day 8 prompt!

I was initially going to do an underwater bit of art, but it occurred to me that I have done a teal-glitter-background with shells or fish twice in the last few months, so I went feathers instead!

The actual design does not fit across three nails (in fact, 90% of it fits on my thumb) but I think it looks fine with the slightly overlapping stretch I went with as well! I also highlighted the central part with teal and purple just for fun.

Some of the more closely-spaced details were lost with this stamp, but I still think it came out nicely. Easy feathers! The teal base was grabbed on a whim, because I think darker colors look nice on short nails.

I should try to freehand some peacock feathers again soon as well. I miss peacocks :-D. Unfortunately, my animal day prompt is already done, but I did consider it!

I had been missing water marbles…so I went ahead and did one! I have been seeing a lot of pink + coral + gold, so I used that color theme.

Ever since I got Clearwater by Pipe Dream Polish, I have taken great glee out of water marbling over a metallic polish that would NEVER otherwise be usable…like Good as Gold by essie. Metallics do not marble!

This was fast and dirty…I just did a fun looking pattern in the marbled polish and dipped my whole darn hand in at once. I usually don’t do that, but I didn’t feel like wasting a whole bunch of polish and I was getting impatient with myself. Despite my rush, the whole thing came out looking alright!

New stamping plate and a new polish! This is maybe not the best mani to show off the polish, but I thought the stamp looked really cool, so I tried it anyway :-p

The polish is LE 28 by Emily de Molly. It is a limited edition polish, for reasons I don’t quite understand! LE 28 is a bright pink-leaning red with sparse holo glitter and lots of metallic shimmer. It also has dark red flakie shards in it, that I absolutely love! This is two thin coats. Without top coat, it is a bit textured, but one coat of top coat is enough to smooth it out.

The stamp is BC-06 from Lady Queen Beauty. The plate is made up of a hodgepodge of fun designs, including lace, geometric, trees, and bridal stamps. I love them all!

I decided to stamp in silver rather than white, because I haven’t used my silver polish in a while (and I just got a backup bottle so now I’m not afraid of it running out!). Yay silver 🙂